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Kazuya hadn’t noticed.
That seems to be the recurring theme when it comes to Sawamura Eijun.
He hadn’t noticed when, during the finals against Inashiro last year, Sawamura’s face was tense, begging Kazuya to call a time-out and give him some room to breathe. He hadn’t noticed during their summer break how Sawamura’s spirit began to deteriorate, with no help from Kazuya as he was the one constantly on Sawamura’s ass about his weak control. By the time he did notice, it was too late, and Sawamura was walking off the mound against Yakushi with the yips.
He also didn’t notice when precisely Sawamura had become more than worthy of shouldering the ace number. He swore he was there, always watching Sawamura’s hard work and perseverance, and then suddenly he blinked and Sawamura was dragging the team up by their bootstraps in their loss to Ichidai in the spring tournament.
And now here he is once again, watching as Higuchi-sensei tells them about the light inflammation in Sawamura’s left arm. He hadn’t noticed Sawamura’s condition, the weakening of his grip strength or the heaviness in his arm until he nearly had a heart attack watching him fail to hold a water bottle the night before. There was no doubt he helped cause this by making Sawamura throw a ton of his newer Numbers in the Finals.
Kazuya didn’t need to be there in the office with them. Furuya was in good shape and Kawakami had already been cleared but if he had to wait a second longer than everyone else to hear about Sawamura’s condition, he would have gone insane. That’s why he’d half forced himself into one of the two cars they’d taken to get to the doctor’s office.
A week. That’s how long Sawamura needs to rest. A week is also all the time they have.
The Koushien opening ceremony is in exactly seven days and when they play exactly will depend on the lot drawings but as it stands, Sawamura probably won’t be able to play in the first game. It’s a good thing to be able to save your ace but it’s also foolish to assume the earlier round games will be easier for them. It would mean they learned nothing if they underestimated any of their opponents.
The bigger issue, the one to worry about first, is that Sawamura has to actually refrain from pitching for an entire week. As the ace. Right before Koushien. Getting Sawamura to sit still on a normal day is already a monumental effort. Now Kazuya feels like he’ll have to set up security to watch over his cheeky kouhai. But that’s for his own piece of mind and isn’t giving Sawamura enough credit.
If anything, Sawamura reminds him of himself right now with a carefree smile on his face as he tries to let everyone know he’s fine and to not let the team stress because of him. By now, he’s more than reliable, more than responsible, and can feel the weight of the team’s success on his shoulders. While it might kill him a bit to not practice with Koushien in only a few days, he knows that Sawamura knows their battle is only beginning. Kazuya can relate more than Sawamura knows when he had to sit out for three weeks in the fall because of his side injury.
He wants to say as much to Sawamura, to gauge where he’s at mentally, and to hopefully offer his ace some reassurance. When he tries to approach him as they leave the doctor’s clinic, Sawamura is quick to slide into one car, shutting the door behind him and relegating Kazuya to the second car with Rei-chan.
It’s not a big deal, he’ll just catch up to him later.
Except he doesn’t.
He can’t.
Not when Sawamura takes the last empty seat at his normal table during dinner and Kazuya is forced to sit two tables away. Not when he’s missing from the indoor practice building during their individual practice time. He’s unaccounted for while the team discusses the results of the Teito vs. Ugumori in the cafeteria. When he tries asking Kuramochi about it, all he gets is a gruff “How the hell should I know? I’m not his keeper”, which Kazuya disagrees with but he’s still left empty-handed.
It’s the same story the next day. Sawamura’s megawatt smile isn’t the first thing he sees in the morning. He stays clear of the bullpen but has no problem obnoxiously shouting at the fielders as they work on some drills. He doesn’t burst into Kazuya’s room that evening to steal the pillows off his bed and make himself at home on the floor by his desk.
Kazuya is not some kind of genius but he does notice Sawamura blatantly avoiding him. He doesn’t need his glasses to see that.
In all honesty, Sawamura has been acting weird around him the past few days, not just since his doctor’s visit. He wants to ask Kuramochi about it or Kanemaru or Kominato or or or… But that’s kind of pathetic. Shouldn’t he be able to talk to Sawamura by now? Shouldn’t he be able to read Sawamura and the heart he openly wears on his sleeve? His feelings that he blurts out with no filter? It’s starting to feel like the problem here is Kazuya and not anyone else. After all, Sawamura has told him point blank, stunning him quite frankly, that he trusts Kazuya. He wants to trust Sawamura too but maybe part of that trust is Kazuya reaching out first without his ego in the way.
They have Koushien to worry about and their battery needs to be in the best condition both on and off the field. It’s his job as a catcher to check on his pitcher’s condition, on his partner’s condition. There’s also a part of him that knows this isn’t strictly about baseball. Even though it’s been less than a week, he misses Sawamura in a way that makes his gut twist and his nose scrunch up.
So he does the only thing he can think of, which is to wait outside the bathroom and ambush Sawamura when he walks out. Whatever the pitcher is thinking of as he comes into Kazuya’s line of sight, it has him hanging his head low, deep in thought. He doesn’t notice Kazuya which is probably why he doesn’t take off in the opposite direction but their not-so-fun game of hide-and-seek ends here.
“Hey, Sawamura,” Kazuya calls out, leaning against the building’s brick wall and crossing his arms. “Come with me for a bit.”
Sawamura jumps, startled by Kazuya’s sudden and unbothered appearance. “Geh!”
“You can’t keep running away,” Kazuya taunts with a smirk, enjoying how Sawamura bristles like a cat. Yeah, he definitely missed this.
“C-Can I help you, Cap?” Sawamura stammers out when he sees Kazuya’s broad grin, eyes turning cat-like from irritation. Predictably, he tries to worm his way out of following him but Kazuya has his ways of persuading people. Not that he’ll need it, Sawamura is fairly simple. “I was about to run right now…”
“Just follow me,” Kazuya commands, pushing off the wall to lead Sawamura away from the busy courtyard.
Sawamura jumps back, on guard like an anxious dog with its hackles raised and tail stiff. “Where?!”
It’s almost funny how distrustful he is of Kazuya in moments like these. Like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Kazuya to say something to tease him. Normally he would but right now he needs less suspicion and more cooperation. “I’ll buy you an orange juice,” he offers.
“Don’t think you can just bribe me!”
Kazuya knows he can. Sawamura is kind of dumb like that. If it wasn’t for his injury, he’d have offered to catch for him and had him caving in before he could finish speaking. “And a pudding.”
Sawamura makes a show of thinking it over, scratching at his chin and humming loudly. “I suppose I can spare you a few minutes of my time,” he so generously settles on.
“How thoughtful,” Kazuya blandly says and rolls his eyes.
Kazuya stops by the vending machine to get them drinks before leading Sawamura up the hill where he likes to practice swinging his bat. The view of the grounds is nice and it’s quiet up here now that most people have left the fields. Kazuya is usually left to his own devices here, besides the occasional visit from Kuramochi or his demanding pitchers, so hopefully, no one will bother them.
They're at the top of the staircase when Kazuya turns to Sawamura. He twists off the cap of the orange juice before offering it to him, not wanting to risk him straining his elbow at all. “So… why are you avoiding me?” he casually starts, taking a swig of his own sports drink.
“Straight to it then, huh?” Sawamura looks down, fiddling with the juice in his hands, and laughs awkwardly. “As expected of Miyuki-senpai.”
“Don’t try to distract me,” Kazuya lightly chastises.
“I’m working on it… sorting out this mess in my head.” His brows are pinched and the corners of his mouth are downturned. Whatever is bothering him, he must have been stewing on it a lot for it to make him so downcast.
Kazuya doesn’t like how sullen he’s acting. Sawamura should always be loud with a bright smile taking up his face and clear eyes that can face anything. He doesn’t know when Sawamura’s happiness became so important to him but it probably stems back to how depressed he was when he had the Yips. Back then, Kazuya was helpless and dealing with his transition into being the captain that he couldn't see past his two feet. Looking back on it, he wishes he would’ve done more.
Since then, he’s done a lot of growing. He knows what his priorities are and he’s better, not perfect, but better at working with his teammates’ emotions. He can understand them more, a far cry from his senior league team where it was every man for himself. It’s not his job to be everyone’s therapist but he can still reach out and show he cares because he does.
With Sawamura, there’s a little bit more to it. The way he cherishes him is as more than a teammate, a captain, or a senpai. He finds himself wanting to always be next to him, to talk to him, and to be on the receiving end of his passionate gaze that never fails to quicken his heartbeat and light a fire in him. He’s seen Sawamura at his lowest and that one time was enough, he never wants to see Sawamura cry like that again.
“But it has to do with me, right? That mess?” Kazuya asks softly, hoping to show he’s not mad but also coax out whatever is bothering him. “That’s why you’ve been avoiding me and no one else.”
A part of him was hoping that Sawamura would yell at him, to boldly shout whatever he was feeling, and let out those swirling emotions from inside him. Now that Sawamura’s standing in front of him looking unsure, he feels stupid. For all the times he says Sawamura is simple, he’s also complex in ways Kazuya can’t understand. Out of everyone he’s ever met, Sawamura is the only person that consistently leaves him speechless.
When Sawamura goes quiet, Kazuya tries again. “I told you before, the ace doesn’t carry the team alone. You can talk to me.”
“What about you?” Sawamura fires back, meeting Kazuya’s eyes with a glint of hurt in them. “You can talk to me too but that never happens!”
Kazuya blinks. “What are you—”
“I heard you, you know!” Sawamura shouts, his true voice coming through as the outburst Kazuya was waiting for finally comes. Except Kazuya’s hit with a sense of dread, panic rising in him as he realizes he is woefully in over his head. He can deal with Sawamura when he’s irritated at Kazuya’s teasing but he doesn’t know how to act with a Sawamura that is genuinely angry. “I heard you telling Furuya that you wanted to go pro.”
Sawamura’s grip on his juice tightens, crinkling the plastic bottle as he looks down at his feet.
Kazuya’s brows pinch together as he tries to piece together what he’s talking about. “When was… oh.”
He can remember it now. Furuya came to him after the semifinal to the very spot where they’re standing right now. He had no idea Sawamura was around to hear that but it makes sense. It was that night when he called Sawamura to his room that he began acting differently, sitting in the corner of his room, far away from him, and muttering to himself. Sawamura had stormed out a few moments later in a huff and Kazuya never bothered to further look into why he seemed so angry. He was acting like nothing happened during the game so he assumed everything had resolved itself.
He still doesn’t understand why but the more he watches Sawamura’s bottom lip tremble the less he looks angry and the more he looks disappointed. Betrayed. It’s not like Furuya was asking Kazuya to catch for him behind Sawamura’s back. He knows their rivalry can turn odd sometimes but he was only talking to Furuya that night.
“Why are you upset about that?” Kazuya presses. “I talk to Furuya all the time.” That is clearly not the right thing to say because Sawamura’s face twists like he’d eaten something sour. That can’t be it. He can’t only be mad because he talks to Furuya, something he’s been doing every day for more than a year. “I’m allowed to talk to him,” he adds slowly.
“I know that!” Eijun raises his voice and looks up at Kazuya. It’s only then that Kazuya sees the unmistakable glimmer of tears in his eyes. On instinct, he takes a step forward, wanting to reach out and comfort him but now wanting to risk derailing their conversation. “I know it’s not fair of me,” he continues in a much softer tone, sounding so small and unlike himself. “You didn’t do anything wrong but it still hurts. I’ve never heard you be that honest before. And it wasn’t even to me.”
He doesn’t know how to respond to that. Nothing he did was meant to be a personal attack against him, he’d never do that. Things just happened the way they did. Even if he knew Sawamura was overhearing them, it’s not like he would have said anything different. He didn’t pick Furuya over Sawamura. That wasn’t a case of him playing favorites.
“You’re thinking too hard about what I said,” Kazuya reassures, trying to de-escalate Sawamura’s erratic thoughts. “I wasn’t talking to Furuya because he isn't you, I was talking to him because he was there.”
“So if it were me, you would have given me the same honesty?”
Kazuya bites his tongue. There’s no good way to answer that because the only reason he ended up saying half of those things to Furuya is because they were already talking about Sawamura. He's always had a bad habit of holding back from praising Sawamura to his face because he is scared of revealing too much.
All he can do is stare at Sawamura, his lips parting and closing as he tries to think up something to say. The longer the silence goes on, the more Sawamura blinks until he’s rubbing at them to stop the tears before they fall.
“Sawamura—”
“It’s fine!” he cuts Kazuya off. “It’s not like I was expecting much anyway.” That hurts Kazuya more than anything else, the blow hitting him right in his chest. Sawamura briefly averts his eyes to the side as he takes a breath and straightens his spine. “If you can’t be honest, then I will. I came to Seidou because of you!”
Whatever Kazuya was expecting, it wasn’t that. “I… I didn’t know that,” he mumbles and rubs at the back of his neck.
“Well, it’s true! It was the sound of my pitch hitting your mitt that never left my mind. I wondered how much better I could get with you. I’ve spent this entire time trying to become the ace so that I’d be the priority. I’d be the main pitcher to work with you. The entire time Furuya was the ace I was constantly being pushed aside and now that I’m the ace? I’m still only half of what I wanted to be.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I don’t need to think it, I can see it with my own eyes!” Sawamura's voice rises an octave as he starts rambling, unloading everything he’s been holding back for who knows how long. “I don’t work with you any more than I already was. I still have to share you while being pushed off on the first-year catchers. I worked my ass off to earn the ace number and yet you’re already talking about the pros! Way beyond where I can reach you. We don’t have that long left to be a battery and yet you’re still not focused on me!”
He knew pitchers were greedy creatures but this takes the cake. In a way, he’s kind of flattered that Sawamura thinks so highly of him, that there’s a certain possessiveness in his words that’s impressive even to him. He’d be wrong not to correct Sawamura on the one glaringly wrong thing he’s said. Sawamura should already know this but a catcher’s job isn’t to cater to one single pitcher, the same as one pitcher shouldn't be working with only one catcher.
The sentiment gets across to him because, in a way, he wishes he could work with Sawamura all the time too. Their battery is his favorite. He has the most fun pitching to Sawamura, he’s never laughed more on the field than when they play together, and Sawamura makes all his faults as a catcher as clear as day. Realistically, pitchers need more rest than other positions do so Sawamura can’t play all game, every game unless he wants to cut his baseball career short. It’s a necessity that Kazuya works on his other batteries because of that.
“Sawamura,” Kazuya says with a chuckle, “My role on the team is a lot bigger than just working with the ace.”
“I'm just an obligation to you, then?” Sawamura crosses his arms defensively and glares at Kazuya with all the ferocity of a kitten trying to roar.
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Kazuya counters. “Don't put words in my mouth.”
“How am I supposed to know otherwise?! You never talk to me!”
Kazuya takes a breath so that he doesn’t get dragged in by Sawamura’s yelling. “What exactly do you want from me? You want us to sit down and have a heart-to-heart the same way we have review sessions?”
“No! It’s not supposed to be a chore!” Sawamura cries out as his face begins to turn a blotchy pink. He throws his hands up in frustration and then pleads with Kazuya, “You’re supposed to want me as much as I want you!”
Kazuya’s heart leaps with surprise, Sawamura’s words shaking him to his core. His eyes widen and his jaw drops, dumbfounded as the gears in his brain work overtime to analyze what Sawamura has just revealed.
It’s as the first tears slide down Sawamura’s soft cheeks that it hits Kazuya.
Holy shit.
It doesn’t matter how much they talk about this because they’re each talking about two different things. Kazuya is talking about the logistics of baseball and their relationship as a battery on the team. Sawamura, on the other hand, is talking about their relationship off the field. And how he wants it to be something more.
“Sawamura, are we still talking about baseball?” he asks, just in case. “Because I know I’m not perfect but I’ve tried my best to stay objective, to not pick favorites, and to do my duty as captain to get this team to the top of the nation. But if this isn’t about baseball and you’re just jealous—”
“I’m not jealous!” Eijun screeches at the top of his lungs, nearly deafening Kazuya. His answer is so quick that Kazuya can’t help but think he is.
Kazuya laughs, out loud and carefree because this has to be the worst confession of all time. And it’s coming from the guy who’s spent countless hours reading, and crying over, shoujo manga on his bedroom floor. He tucks that piece of information into the back of his brain to tease his spoiled pitcher with later. For now, Sawamura’s tears are coming in earnest and while there’s no point in him crying over Kazuya, he doesn’t know that yet.
He reacts swiftly, dropping his drink and wrapping an arm around Sawamura’s right shoulder, careful not to jostle his left arm, and pulls him into his chest. Sawamura doesn’t try to pull away at least and wraps his arms around Kazuya's waist to cry into his shirt.
Kazuya can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. He’s happy that Sawamura likes him but he would have bet that out of everyone, Sawamura would be the type of person to declare his feelings for someone over the loudspeaker during morning announcements. Instead, it seems like he’s bottled up his crush until it’s ended up spilling all over Kazuya. Literally, because he can feel where his shirt is starting to soak through with tears.
“Stop laughing,” Sawamura grumbles into his shirt and hits him in the back with a fist.
“Hey, Sawamura,” Kazuya calls to him and he sounds way too smug, even by his own standards. He waits until Sawamura’s sniffles die down and he's leaning back in Kazuya’s hold to look at his face. “You really like me, don’t you?”
For a few blissful seconds, Sawamura is speechless as an alarming shade of bright red crawls up his neck and overtakes his entire face. Kazuya watches in pure elation as Sawamura begins to sputter, his facial expressions morphing from embarrassed to horrified and then settling on enraged denial.
“W-Who’d ever like a four-eyed jerk like you?!” He’s wiggling in Kazuya’s hold, trying to escape and put some distance between them. “Absolutely not me! Not in a million years!” So he does. That makes this so much easier to handle.
“Now, now, I thought you were the one who said we need to be honest with each other,” Kazuya teases, as he grapples with Sawamura, trying to keep a hold of him so that he doesn’t run off.
“I take it back,” Sawamura yelps. “Please never speak to me again!”
“You’re such a handful, you know that?” Kazuya grumbles as he fights against Eijun’s flailing arms, almost getting his glasses knocked off his face in the process. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying don’t mix business with pleasure?"
Sawamura’s stills are long enough for Kazuya to see the bewildered look on his face. “What pleasure?! There’s nothing pleasant about you!"
His surprise lasts long enough for Kazuya to get a solid hold on his bratty pitcher and he’s able to pin his arms down. Kazuya brings their faces within inches of each other, flashing his smirk as he acts like he’s about to kiss Sawamura. Sawamura’s eyes widen comically, the gold in them reduced to a slim ring of color, and then he starts thrashing around.
“Get off me!!”
“Sawamura~,” Kazuya sings as he maintains that minuscule distance between them. “There’s no need to act so shy~.”
He already knew this but with Sawamura so close it’s impossible to ignore how pretty he is. Even with his face scrunched up, Kazuya can’t help but notice his long, dark eyelashes or the still boyish roundness of his cheeks and jaw. Then there’s his soft, pouty lips, so pink like a ripe berry that he finds himself wanting to kiss Sawamura for real. His pitcher is cute but he’s cutest when he’s acting like a hissing kitten toward Kazuya.
“Stop being so fussy,” Kazuya berates.
“Unhand me!” Sawamura demands as his chest heaves from the effort it's taking to fight Kazuya off. “My pure heart isn’t ready!”
Kazuya ignores him and in a more serious voice says, “Hey, open your mouth.”
Once Sawamura sees he’s no longer messing with him, he relaxes significantly. Kazuya keeps one arm pinned around Sawamura’s back while the other wraps under his jaw to squeeze both his cheeks. Sawamura clenches his eyes shut but still obediently parts his lips. It’s hilarious, and obvious, how he’s not the least bit opposed to kissing Kazuya.
“What are you doing?”
Kazuya freezes at the voice and it gives Eijun the leverage he needs to extract himself from Kazuya’s iron hold. He sighs at Furuya’s sudden appearance on the staircase, watching them with a passive, yet curious look on his face. Of course, it had to be Furuya. That doesn’t really help Kazuya’s case.
“We weren’t doing anything!” Sawamura shouts, his face somehow even more red than it was before. Kazuya’s concerned that the poor boy is about to blow a gasket. “Our mouths were clearly not anywhere near each other!” Kazuya sighs again, this time at Sawamura’s terrible ability to lie. “Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, this Sawamura Eijun has, umm… I have homework to do! Goodnight!”
He runs off before either of them can get a word in. It’s fine though, because now that Kazuya knows what the actual problem is, he can easily fix it. Sawamura won't be able to run from him anymore.
He slides his hands into the pockets of his shorts and turns to Furuya. “You have terrible timing, you know?”
“You should keep your hands to yourself,” Furuya counters with a half-shrug. He sounds so much like Kuramochi that Kazuya can’t help but laugh.
The only issue is that now that he knows about Sawamura’s feelings and that they were milliseconds away from kissing, he wants to do anything but that.